Search - 2004

 
 
JAPAN
Mar 29, 2006

What next in Asahara trial saga?

Aum Shinrikyo founder Shoko Asahara's lawyers continue to protest the Tokyo High Court's dismissal Monday of their appeal of the cult guru's death sentence.
BUSINESS
Mar 28, 2006

Overseas production ratio hit record high 16.2% in '04

The overseas production ratio of Japanese manufacturers rose 0.6 percentage point from the previous year to a record high of 16.2 percent in fiscal 2004, up for the fifth straight year, according to an annual government survey released Monday.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 25, 2006

Ukraine's watershed election

KIEV -- Ukraine's politics are not those of the steppe. Our voters cannot stroll in one direction during one poll, and in the opposite direction the next time they vote, without worrying about falling over the edge. Ukrainians are people of the watershed: We live on either one side or the other of a...
JAPAN
Mar 23, 2006

Visit Japan, sure, but info centers closing

Ah, the friendly tourist information center -- often the first place travelers visit when trying to acquaint themselves with an unfamiliar city.
JAPAN
Mar 21, 2006

Two die, one critical in apparent suicide bid

Police found two women dead and one man in critical condition Monday afternoon inside a car in a mountainous part of Awaji, Hyogo Prefecture, apparently victims of a group suicide attempt.
JAPAN
Mar 21, 2006

Local hire pocketed visa overcharges at Indonesian Embassy

JAKARTA (Kyodo) A Japanese employee at the Indonesian Embassy in Tokyo allegedly skimmed nearly $1.2 million from applications made to the mission's visa section in Japan, an Indonesian Foreign Ministry official said Monday.
JAPAN
Mar 19, 2006

Prosecutors set to charge Livedoor's accountants

Prosecutors are getting ready to file criminal charges against accountants who did work for Livedoor Co. as part of their investigation into the Internet and financial services firm's alleged accounting fraud in 2004, prosecution sources said.
JAPAN
Mar 17, 2006

Horie starting to confess his guilt, prosecutors say

Livedoor Co. founder Takafumi Horie has owned up to part of the accounting fraud charges against him and the Internet and financial services firm for the first time since his January arrest, according to prosecution sources.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Film
Mar 17, 2006

You can't really go wrong with the army on your side

Talking with Yevgeni Lavrentyev is like walking into a Tolstoy novel: The characters will launch into monologues that can take up an entire page, but ultimately they have their own agenda on what to say, or not.
JAPAN
Mar 15, 2006

Horie, four colleagues dealt new charges

Former Livedoor Co. President Takafumi Horie and four others, as well as the company itself, were charged Tuesday with falsifying the company's financial statements for the business year through September 2004.
Japan Times
JAPAN
Mar 15, 2006

Trio's bid-rigging charges grow

Tokyo prosecutors again indicted three men Tuesday over new allegations of bid-rigging for additional public works projects in their past posts at the Defense Facilities Administration Agency, investigative sources said.
JAPAN
Mar 14, 2006

Net boards venue for faceless rightists

OSAKA -- They are called "Net uyoku," or Internet rightwingers.
MORE SPORTS
Mar 13, 2006

Japan's Ota 2nd in World Cup foil

Japanese fencer Yuki Ota posted his second podium finish on the World Cup circuit Sunday when he came runner-up to German Peter Joppich in the men's individual foil.
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 12, 2006

Equality still has a long way to go

International Women's Day, commemorated March 8, was a chance to celebrate women's achievements. But it also highlighted the fact that discrimination continues to be a major problem for women around the globe -- and Japanese women, unfortunately, are no exception. In fact, the world's second-largest...
JAPAN
Mar 10, 2006

LDP group proffers bill to update Minamata law

A Liberal Democratic Party panel agreed Thursday to present a bill to the Diet that would revise a 1979 law on Minamata disease in order to set up government screening body to register victims of the massive mercury poisoning of the 1950s and 1960s.
EDITORIALS
Mar 9, 2006

Turbulent times for JAL

The drama started Feb. 10, when four board members of Japan Airlines Corp.'s international operations unit visited JAL President Toshiyuki Shinmachi with a petition carrying the signatures of some 50 managers. They urged him and two other executives to take responsibility for the JAL group's poor business...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Art
Mar 9, 2006

Young, fresh and traditional Japanese artists

Some people complain that poetry has never been the same since poets were absolved of their obligations to rhyme and rhythm. The same people also think that since the 1968 scrapping of the Hollywood Production Code that regulated sexual content, movies have lost a lot of their sexual sizzle.
BUSINESS
Mar 7, 2006

Ailing radio broadcasters see promise in podcasts

Podcasting, a new type of Web broadcasting via digital music players like the Apple iPod, might prove a boon for businesses that are increasingly catching on to its novel commercial potential.
BUSINESS
Mar 5, 2006

Softbank looks to acquire Japan unit of Vodafone

Softbank Corp. said Saturday it is in talks with Vodafone Group PLC of Britain about buying a controlling stake in Japanese subsidiary Vodafone K.K.
JAPAN
Mar 4, 2006

School refuses Asahara son entry

A private junior high school in Saitama Prefecture has refused to enroll a son of Aum Shinrikyo founder Shoko Asahara, the condemned guru's lawyers said Thursday.
JAPAN
Mar 2, 2006

U.S. agent suspected of tax evasion

The Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau suspects a man helping a U.S. company negotiate contracts for its cell-phone patents with Japanese makers hid more than 1 billion yen in income and evaded 400 million yen in taxes from 2001 to 2004, sources said Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Mar 2, 2006

Management strife threatens JAL's dominance

Internal struggles have long been the norm at Japan Airlines Corp., but the management row that surfaced in February goes beyond the usual factional strife.

Longform

Mount Fuji is considered one of Japan's most iconic symbols and is a major draw for tourists. It's still a mountain, though, and potential hikers need to properly prepare for any climb.
What it takes to save lives on Mount Fuji